Contents
Introduction
This document decribes the personas used to illustrate the scenarios in the primer. Personas are fictitious people who play some role in a scenario. In addition to people, we’ll also create fictious organizations that employee these people, projects that these people work on, tools that these people use, etc.
Organizations
BrainTwistors Corp.
BrainTwistors Corp. is a US-based Internet company. It has created a game website that generates revenue by selling advertising for game stores. The company has been in operation for 8 years. The BrainTwistors Corp. website is in constant need of fresh, intriguing content that will draw gamers to it. BrainTwistors Corp. has a software development organization that produces content form the website, including online puzzles.
Projects
Tsunami 1.0
Tsunami is a popular Japanese logic puzzle, aslo known as picross, logic art, or nongram. BrainTwistors Corp. is planning to create a web version of Tsunami since this will drive traffic to its website and increase advertising revenue. Tsunami 1.0 is the first release of the web version of the game and also the name of the software development project to development. Future plans include developing free iPhone, BlackBerry, and Nintendo DS versions, and charging for puzzle downloads.
MetricServer
MetricServer is a web-based performance management application that collects data from software development repositories and makes it available for presentation and analysis. Estimates play a big role in MetricServer since they provide the target values against which the measurements are compared. MetricServer is a provider of EMS 1.0 services. It coordinates the interactions of portfolio management, project management, and estimation tools. MetricServer does have a simple web user interface, but most people interact with it indirectly via other tools that consume its EMS 1.0 services.
BrainTwistor Corp. uses MetricServer to manage estimates and measurements for its software development projects.
PfGenius
BrainTwistors Corp. uses the web-based PfGenius project portfolio management tool. PfGenius lets businesses create and prioritize projects proposals, and review the execution status of approved projects. PfGenius has built-in workflow capability to enact the project portfolio management processes. PfGenius is a consumer of EMS 1.0 services.
Guestimator 101
BrainTwistors Corp. uses Guestimator 101, a desktop application intended for software development organizations that use a single implementation technology, that use teams composed of a uniform combination of experienced and novice developers, and that execute projects within a relatively small range of sizes and durations. This makes project execution fairly predictable. Guestimator 101 maintains a database of past projects with their effort, size, duration, and other measurements. Guestimator 101 is a consumer of EMS 1.0 services.
TaskPhocus
The Tsunami 1.0 development team uses TaskPhocus, a project management tool that maintains the project plans, tasks, features, defects, etc. and that has been configured to enact the iterative process used by the team, including the end of iteration reestimation process. TaskPhocus is a consumer of EMS 1.0 services
People
Pedro Mendelzohn
Pedro Mendelzohn is a BrainTwistors Corp. product manager. After 12 years of software development, he moved into product management and has been doing that for 7 years. Pedro is responsible for understanding the game market, defining product requirements, developing a vision for new products, and initiating their development. Pedro understands the investment aspects of software but is no longer himself a software engineer. He uses PfGenius to create project proposals. He is responsible for the Tsunami 1.0 product.
Syd Ethan
Syd Ethan is a veteran software estimator at BrainTwistors Corp., and is a power user of Guestimator 101. Syd has 23 years of software development experience and has been preparing cost estimates for 17 of those years. Syd is responsible for estimating Tsunami 1.0.
Priyanka Malhotra
Priyanka is a software development manager at BrainTwistors Corp. She has 10 years of web development experience and has moved up the ranks at BrainTwistors Corp. into a project management role. Priyanka is an expert at Agile development but is not an experienced estimator, nor does she understand the investment aspects of software. Tsunami 1.0 is her first major project as a development manager. Priyanka uses TaskPhocus will track her team’s progress closely and compare it to the estimates in order to keep it on track.
Category:EMS Primer
